Book Review- The Fifth Mountain by Paolo Coelho

Just like many of  his other books, Paolo Coelho has managed to make the reader ponder over the core psyche of what one's life is about. I've read two of his books, both of them worked along similar lines of story telling, carrying an inner meaning. There would be so much to talk about analysing Coelho's books in review discussions as every reader can relate to his books. The fifth mountain has a central character named Elijah who worked as a carpenter in Israel during the time when Jewish priests and when the region was ruled by king Solomon's sons and when the Assyrian and Phoenician civilisations were in power. The story takes Elijah, who is summoned by god's angel and given instructions to follow which he obliges to. This takes him to a city called Akbar across the border of israel into enemy territory. At first he is unwelcome and sent away as punishment to the fifth mountain , the place where Akbar's god are said to live but on god's will he performs a miracle that makes him get accepted by the people and he is eventually taken in as a government advisor. The neighbours, the Assyrians then chance to attack the city and burns down Akbar to the ground but Elijah leads the survivors giving them hope and rebuilds the city.  There were instances where he could avoid the flee from his homeland, avoid the Assyrian war and the burning down of the city, the loss of his loved one, but towards the end he finds the purpose in all the events that occur in his life and realises that it is all what we call fate. It is how he chose how to face these situations and what decisions he made that defined his life. Some instances from the book that describe this thought is the one when Elijah and the person he loves, along with her son set to leave Akbar, before the war, back to Israel.  But the angel of god appears in front of him and asks him to go back to Akbar as it was not yet time for him to leave. He obliges and gets back to Akbar only to find that the enemies have attacked by night and burned down the city. He loses his loved one in fire. Her last words compels Elijah to stay back and rebuild it after the war which he eventually does and teaches her son the trade of carpentry and stone and of the spiritualism he has learnt. He leaves Akbar finally to see it flourish in the new systems of governance brought about during his tenure as governor. Elijah could have chosen to leave as the onset of war made him lose most of his faith on his god but he chose to turn around the stay back. There is a short tale mentioned in the story about Jacob into whose tent a stranger enters at night and fights with him till day and when the stranger asks Jacob as of who he is, he replies asking him to bless him before he does so. He blesses him and jacob replies with his name and the stranger says that he is no longer to be referred to as Jacob but as Israel.  The stranger, who I have interpreted it, was a form of god who tests Jacob, where the struggle through the night in the tent was a metaphor of the struggle through life when things are dark and unclear and as Jacob survives the struggles till the day breaks and things are more clear and  the god defines Jacob by his actions. What he meant by Israel I'm not too sure though but it definitely says that he comes out of the night a changed man. I enjoyed reading This one particularly because of the meaning the story conveys, probably the only turn off being that there are instance of old English being used that had to be a couple of times for it to make some sense to me.  Should say read it for the insight into a little bit of  history of that time before Christ in israel it teaches and to ponder over the inner meaning the book conveys.